Escarpments for Dummies

The Niagara Escarpment: escarpments are regional features, Mary

Whenever they run across the phrase "geologic formation" in a post, our research staffers flag it for the staff geologist. It's one of his pet peeves... it seems that 99 times out of a hundred (if not 9,999 items out of ten thousand) the term "formation" is misused. What people want to say is "rock formation" or "geologic feature," but they're too stupid to know the difference. Stupid like WiseGEEK.com writer Mary McMahon, sometimes known as S. E. Smith (and editor Kristen Osborne) who botched the term in "What is an Escarpment?"

McMahon opens by telling her readers,

"An escarpment is a geologic formation caused by faulting or erosion where a cliff or very steep slope is formed over time."

First, Mary, an escarpment is a regional-scale topographic feature, not a "geologic formation." Second, you blew the definition: every online dictionary or resource of more authority that content farms like WiseGEEK has a definition something like, "[A] long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights." McMahon missed the significance of "long, steep" and "separating." Instead, she went for rubbish about what you might see at an escarpment – "[d]ifferent geological layers" – and some sort of bull about separating climate zones. Mary even wandered over into something vaguely science-y stuff by claiming that,

"Erosion of escarpments is a gradual process, and it is usually seen near geologic boundaries, where rocks of different types start to wear unevenly. Soft sandstone may be eaten away, for example, leaving harder granite behind."

We asked the chief geologist who laughed at the term "geologic boundaries" before pointing out that McMahon seems to be describing differential erosion, which is a key to escarpment formation. In reality, however, it was obvious that Mary was utterly unfamiliar with the word "escarpment" before taking on this assignment, just like her readers are uninformed by her half-assed discussion.

The key to recognizing an escarpment is that this regional feature typically separates regions of different elevation in flat-lying or nearly flat-lying rocks. McMahon skipped over that part, though, leaving her wide open for the rib-tickling fun of a Dumbass of the Day award party.

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